Changing SIM cards between phones, can your provider tell?

Bukkake

Hello!

First post!

Anyway, I'd like to ask: can your mobile phone provider tell what kind of phone you're using if you take your SIM card from your contract phone and put it in another phone?
Does information like the phone make, model, IMEI, etc, show up when you send texts and make calls?

Just asking out of curiosity

P.S. - Can anyone direct me to some technical forums concerned with mobile phones, should this question not be able to be answered here?

Thanks guys and girls!

Jon_01

They can tell if they go and look.
The servers check the IMEI every time the phone logs on. That's how blacklisting works. From that they can tell make and model.
The info in logged on the server and certain depts can and do use the info. But most frontline staff don't have access to it.

Bukkake

Thanks man!

If I was to hypothetically report to my provider that my phone is lost or stolen, do you think it would be routine to check the corresponding IMEI number, etc, of the last call/action made by the phone before it was turned off/ran out of battery?

Thanks again for the quick answer!

ZhugeEX

Bukkake wrote: »

Thanks man!

If I was to hypothetically report to my provider that my phone is lost or stolen, do you think it would be routine to check the corresponding IMEI number, etc, of the last call/action made by the phone before it was turned off/ran out of battery?

Thanks again for the quick answer!

Don't.

Just don't.

Jon_01

Bukkake wrote: »

Thanks man!

If I was to hypothetically report to my provider that my phone is lost or stolen, do you think it would be routine to check the corresponding IMEI number, etc, of the last call/action made by the phone before it was turned off/ran out of battery?

Thanks again for the quick answer!

I know for a fact they would. As ZhugeEX, just don't.

NFH

Networks can do this very easily. If I log into my Vodacom (South Africa) account on their web site, it shows a photo of a black iPhone 5 together with a description "Apple Apple iPhone 5 32GB Black" [sic]. Clearly they are detecting this from the last phone into which my SIM card was inserted. Somehow (maybe from the IMEI number) they can even detect the exact model and colour of my phone.